Yarra Trams and Public Transport Victoria are consulting passengers on planned changes to major services along St Kilda Road.
More people are using trams and public than ever, and travel patterns are changing, PTV chief executive Mark Wild said.
“Patronage data shows that employment opportunities in the western end of the CBD from William Street through to the Docklands is meaning that more people are wanting to access these areas,” Wild explained.
“Currently, Melbourne’s tram network is designed to funnel customers to Swanston Street, Collins Street and Bourke Street locations in the CBD. This has put a lot of pressure along major roads such as St Kilda Road which holds the title of being the world’s busiest tram corridor.
“The tram stop at Federation Square is used something like 22,000 times every day.”
Proposed changes include the merging of Routes 8 and 55 into one route, Route 58. Route 55 passengers’ travel would be unchanged, while existing Route 8 customers would be able to travel directly into the western end of the CBD, up William Street and on to West Coburg at one end, and Toorak at the other.
Customers wanting to head to Swanston Street would need to interchange at Domain to another tram that, during weekdays, would only result in a one minute delay, according to PTV.
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The introduction of Route 58 also means that high-capacity low-floor trams will serve three of Victoria’s largest hospitals – Royal Melbourne, Royal Women’s and Royal Children’s – PTV pointed out.
Other changes as a result of the proposed new Route 58 would be alterations to the start and finish locations of Routes 1 and 6. Route 6 currently finishes at Melbourne University but under the new proposal would instead be extended to East Coburg. Route 1 would instead terminate at Moreland Station.
Yarra Trams and PTV are using the month of July to consult customers on the proposed changes, which the authorities say are chiefly aimed at addressing over-crowding, and moving major routes on St Kilda Road towards ‘turn-up-and-go’ status.
Yarra Trams boss Clement Michel said that the proposal to reduce this heavy reliance on St Kilda Road will have knock-on benefits across the network.
“Time is precious and we want to give time back to our customers by reducing wait times and improving reliability of our services,” he said.
“At the same time we want to maintain or improve the current level of service where we can. This is why we are moving towards having a tram at least every ten minutes, 7am to 7pm, every weekday and 10am to 7pm on weekends.
“It means that you can turn up at your local tram stop with the certainty of waiting no more than ten minutes on a weekday for your next tram.”
Both Michel and Wild encouraged people impacted by the changes to take the opportunity to have their say. PTV has launched the ‘Get Involved’ page, accessible here, for customers to voice their opinions.